ALL
'ontrihiltior -
TZEDAKAH
Year-end giving makes a big difference to our Jewish organizations.
Barbara Lewis
Contributing Writer
I
t starts before Thanksgiving. Mailboxes
fill up with appeals from nonprofit orga-
nizations: Give us your money before
Dec. 31.
Every charity that's ever gotten hold of
your name and mailing address — or your
email address — seems to be competing for
your hard-earned dollars. Why do they all
inundate us at the end of the year?
Two words: tax deduction.
Actually, it's a little more complex than
that. Many donors are inspired by the giv-
ing spirit of the end-of-the-year holidays as
well as by the opportunity to avoid taxes.
Giving tends to go way up in the final quar-
ter of the year.
Some donors begin planning where
they want to spend their charitable dollars
well before the start of what fundraisers
call the giving season. A Google study last
year found that donation-related searches
increased by 30 percent in August and
September.
Many Jewish charities rely on their end-
of-year donations as an important part of
their fundraising program.
Jewish Federation of Metropolitan
Detroit has its annual campaign, endow-
ment campaign and other efforts going on
throughout the year, but 30 percent of the
cash collected annually comes in during
December, said Finance Director Becky
Stasch. That includes payment on pledges
made earlier as well as immediate payment
on new pledges.
At the end of the year, we step up our
efforts, especially with donors we haven't
heard from yet during the year," said Lisa
Cutler, Federation's director of campaign
and community development.
Most of the nonprofits use a combination
of direct mail and online appeals that use
email blasts and social media platforms like
Facebook.
Growing Local
1^Imie.1., LI
The Detroit Jewish News Foundation's
William Davidson Digital Archive of
Jewish Detroit History is a treasure
trove of historic material.
Since its launch just over a year
ago, the archive has attracted more
than 10,000 visitors who accessed
more than 30,000 pages from old
issues of the Jewish News. The
270,000-page archive starts with the
20
December 18 • 2014
m
Personal Touch
Professional fundraisers agree that the key
to getting donors to open their wallets is
to touch their hearts. For human services
organizations that means staying away from
statistics and focusing on the people who
benefit from their work.
Other nonprofits appeal to donors' intel-
lectual interests. The Detroit Jewish News
Foundation and the Jewish Historical
Society of Michigan, for example, may
attract those with an interest in local
Jewish history.
Jewish Family Service (JFS) is in the midst
of a campaign called Friends of the Family.
Its year-end mailer tells the stories of some of
the people the agency has helped.
Although JFS uses social media and email
to promote the campaign, direct mail remains
the most powerful tool. "People like to have
something in front of them to read:' said
Debra Marcus, JFS's chief development officer.
Marcus also tries to make the mailing as
personal as possible.
"We have board members hand-address-
ing notes to people they know:' she said.
They send the hand-addressed messages via
first-class mail, rather than bulk rate, to cre-
ate a more personal appearance.
JFS's mail appeal went out the week
after Thanksgiving, and Marcus says it has
definitely led to an increase in donations.
Although they've recently tweaked the
JFS website to make it "super easy" to give
online, most donations still come through
the mail, Marcus said.
Giving Tuesday
Many charities, including Friendship
Circle in West Bloomfield, used the Giving
Tuesday handle to help promote its cam-
paigns.
Giving Tuesday (also called
#GivingTuesday) was started two years ago by
the 92nd Street Y in New York (a Jewish orga-
nization) and the United Nations Foundation
as a response to the commercialism and con-
March 27,1942, edition of the Detroit
Jewish News.
But wait, there's more!
The Jewish News acquired its
respected competitor, the Detroit
Jewish Chronicle, in 1951. From 1914 to
1951, the Chronicle published an esti-
mated 90,000 pages, which live on in
rolls of difficult-to-search microfilm in
a reference library.
The Detroit Jewish News Foundation
plans to digitize and integrate
the entire content of the Jewish
sumerism of the post-Thanksgiving period.
After the spending frenzy of Black Friday
and Cyber Monday, many charities encour-
age donations by putting their appeals on
Facebook, Twitter and other social media
on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving with the
hashtag GivingTuesday.
Last year, donors gave 90 percent more
on Giving Tuesday than they did in 2012,
according to the Association of Fundraising
Professionals, and the number of participat-
ing organizations quadrupled, from just
over 2,500 to more than 10,000.
Friendship Circle, which helps people
with special needs, joined in Giving
Tuesday this year, figuring it was a good
way to pique the interest of prospective
donors. They offered something in return:
For contributions of $50 or more, donors
will receive an item made by a Friendship
Circle client.
"It's the time of year when everyone is
shopping," said Bassie Shemtov, Friendship
Circle director. Giving Tuesday messages
are a good reminder that there are other
ways to use funds.
For the past several months, Friendship
Circle's goal has been raising $225,000 to
furnish and equip the Farber Soul Center, a
new facility that will include a studio where
clients can create art and a gallery where
they can exhibit and sell their work, a cafe
that will provide work experience for cli-
ents, and a hall for special events.
On Dec. 11, Friendship Circle sent out
an email blast with an offer from benefac-
tors William and Audrey Farber, for whom
the center is named, to match every gift
through the end of the year. Shemtov said
she hopes the email will be the push donors
need to bring in the final $15,000 the center
needs.
Shemtov's husband, Levi, Friendship
Circle's executive director, said 37 percent
of last year's individual donations came in
during the last quarter.
Chronicle into the William Davidson
Digital Archive of Jewish Detroit
History. When this effort is completed
in 2015, the community will have a
100-plus-year store of timeless infor-
mation about family, friends, organiza-
tions, businesses and more.
Access to this information will be
fast, free, fully searchable and always
available – in perpetuity.
But we need your help! This is a one-
time appeal for your support to help
fund the digitization of the Jewish
Raising Awareness
Kadima, which provides residential
and outpatient services for people with
chronic and persistent mental illness,
chose not to wait until Giving Tuesday to
start their end-of-year appeal.
Before Thanksgiving, the agency sent
out a mailer with stories and photos of
clients, and they personalized the let-
ters that went to previous donors, said
Michelle Malamis, development director.
They also sent an email blast appeal and
promoted it via social media.
Malamis said she hoped the fundrais-
ing campaign will also raise awareness of
the agency, which is celebrating its 30th
anniversary.
"We are the biggest kept secret in the
community; so we're hoping this will also
help educate the community about who
we are and what we do," Malamis said.
A few years ago, the Greater Detroit
Chapter of Hadassah decided to cash in
on donors' inclination to give at the end
of the year by moving its annual telethon
from the spring to November.
This year they held three sessions
at members' homes, each with a party
theme — Chocolicious, Nibbles and
Nuts, and Kugelicious — to attract vol-
unteer phone solicitors. They called all
local Hadassah members who hadn't yet
responded to an earlier mailed solicita-
tion.
"We noshed a little, talked a little and
had a lot of fun," said fundraising vice
president Carol Ogusky. She said she
didn't have the results tallied yet, but she
was very pleased with the results.
Local fundraisers aren't perturbed
by the competition among agencies for
charitable dollars because Detroit has a
reputation for generosity.
"We have a very charitable and giv-
ing community, so we are lucky," said
Federation's Lisa Cutler.
❑
Chronicle.
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